Colin Robertson is a futurist and is not someone most people have heard of. And as he began his presentation, the crowd was treated to a TED speaker’s worst nightmare: The slides crashed and the Mac multi-colored pizza-wheel of death appeared. Then an error message appeared on screen. Then another, and another. Then the wheel got bigger, and there were more of them. And then ten people in the audience held up rainbow umbrellas and spun them.

And then it got really weird.

That’s because Colin Robertson doesn’t exist. He’s the creation of Charlie Todd and Improv Everywhere, “A New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.” Robertson, played by Eugene Cordero, was part of their brilliant and energetic scene of a technical disaster gone flashmob.

The audience was visibly uncomfortable as the tech problems started, but they knew about twenty seconds in that this was on purpose. They still weren’t ready for the sprays of confettii, the people in rainbow clown hats, or the beach-balls tossed from the balcony. Neither was Chris Anderson, who was forced to clear the balls from the stage at the end.

In 1995, Kees Moeliker heard a loud bang coming from the Natural History Museum Rotterdam’s new wing. He knew exactly what it was. A curator at the museum, Moeliker had gotten used to the sound of birds hitting the glass exterior of the new wing, and had even taken to stuffing the dead birds for […]

Comedian Maz Jobrani has some advice for anyone who happens to be Middle Eastern and getting on a plane in the United States. “As a Middle Eastern male, I know there’s certain things I’m not supposed to say on an airplane in the U.S. I can’t walk down the aisle and be like, ‘Hi, Jack.’ […]